Notation
Note: The tunes below are recorded in what
is called “abc notation.” They
can easily be converted to standard musical notation via highlighting with
your cursor starting at “X:1” through to the end of the abc’s, then
“cutting-and-pasting” the highlighted notation into one of the many abc
conversion programs available, or at concertina.net’s incredibly handy “ABC
Convert-A-Matic” at

**Please note that the abc’s in the Fiddler’s
Companion work fine in most abc conversion programs. For example, I use
abc2win and abcNavigator 2 with no problems whatsoever with direct
cut-and-pasting. However, due to an anomaly of the html, pasting the abc’s
into the concertina.net converter results in double-spacing. For
concertina.net’s conversion program to work you must remove the spaces
between all the lines of abc notation after pasting, so that they are
single-spaced, with no intervening blank lines. This being done, the F/C
abc’s will convert to standard notation nicely. Or, get a copy of
abcNavigator 2 – its well worth it.[AK]

YANKEE DOODLE DANDY.
English (originally), American;Country
Dance Tune (2/4 time) or March. D Major (Bayard, Keller, Kennedy, Kidson,
Raven, Sweet): G Major (Linscott): C Major (Kerr). Standard tuning. AB (Bayard,
Johnson, Linscott): AAB (Kerr): AABB (Johnson, Kidson, Raven, Sweet):
AABBA'A'B'B' (Kennedy). There is some mystery and controversy about the exact
origins of one of the most famous tunes in American tradition, "Yankee
Doodle." Elson (The National Music
of America, 1899) finds that the first period of the melody was once quite
familiar to Dutch musicians and “has been used in Holland
from time immemorial as a children’s song,” however, the second part was not
known. The Irish musicologist Flood (1906) maintains "Yankee Doodle"
derives from a Jacobite era (early 18th century) song called "All the Way to Galway [1]."
Claims have also been made for Spanish and even Hungarian musical origins. The
earliest appearance of the complete melody was claimed by Dr. Rimbault (1876)
to have been a printing in Walsh's Collection
of Dancesfor the year 1750 where it he said it appears as "Fisher's
Jig" (a reference to the ‘notorious lady’, Kitty Fisher, who died in
1771). Rimbault later wrote that it was a country dance found under the title “Kitty Fisher's Jig,” written in triple
time, but that it was afterwards altered to common time, although the title
remained the same (he printed what he said was the Walsh tune in the magazine Leisure Hour, see abc below). The
problem is that no one has been able to locate the melody in either Walsh’s
publication or in any of Thompson’s Country
Dance Books of the same era. “Kitty Fisher” does exist in Thompson and Son’s Twenty-four Country Dances
for 1760 but it is a different, duple-time tune, unlike anything resembling
what we know as “Yankee Doodle.” A nursery rhyme exists that goes:

***

Lucy Locket lost her pocket,

Kitty Fisher found it,

Not a bit of money in it,

Only binding round it.

***

This
contains Fischer’s name (misspelled, while Lucy Locket was presumably a name
taken from a character in The Beggars
Opera of 1727) and scans to the “Yankee Doodle” tune, but any direct
relationship remains speculative.

***

If
one discounts Rimbault’s claims, the earliest corroborated appearances of the
“Yankee Doodle” tune are in James Aird’s Selection
of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs Selections Vol. 1 (1782,
sometimes dated 1775-76), and George Colman’s opera Two to One (1784) as a song entitled “Adzooks, Old Crusty, Why so
Rusty?”The tune's mocking connotations
with at least a portion of the American colonial population were apparently
well-established somewhat before that time.

***

Regarding
the lyrics, there is little hard evidence for the derivation of the word Yankee, although it was in use as a term
to identify New Englanders since the early 18th century. Doodle, on the other hand, has been
traced to the Lancashire dialect, and means a trifler or
shiftless individual. Of the song itself, Winstock (1970) writes "It is
generally accepted that the words were written by (the Englishman) Dr. Richard
Shuckburgh around 1755 in derision of the odd‑looking colonials who had
come to help the British regulars fight the French, and the redcoats continued
to use it in contempt...”. Elson (The
National Music of America, 1899) traces this claim to an early 19th
century publication called Farmer &
Moore’s Monthly Literary Journal, although there are other, separate
attributions to Shuckburgh (whose name is spelled various ways).The good and witty doctor did not live to
see his satire used in the war of rebellion for he died in August, 1773, the New York Gazetter reporting: “Died, at Schenectady,
last Monday, Dr. Richard Shuckburgh, a gentleman of a very genteel family, and
of infinite jest and humour.”In
October, 1768, the New York Journal
gave the earliest notice of its performance:
***

The British fleet was bro’t to anchor near
Castle William, in BostonHarbor,

and the opinion of the visitors to the ships
was that the ‘Yankey Doodle

Song’ was the capital piece in the band of
their musicians.

***

Boorish
British officers called for dancing after a concert in Boston
on January 25, 1769, that
had been performed by a group led by musician Stephen Deblois. "Yankee
Doodle" was one of the tunes (along with "Wild Irishman") the
Redcoats derisively demanded, according to a newspaper account of the time, and
when Deblois was not forthcoming, the British rioted. Deblois cancelled further
concerts, and did not reinstate them until the English general in command
pledged his officers' good behavior. By 1775 the piece was played by British
fifers and drummers as a way to taunt the colonial populace as, for example,
they did that year when one "John Andrews complained of the field music of
the (British) 4th Regiment playing that melody near a church during religious
services to annoy the congregation" (Camus, 1976).Culprits were drummed out to the sound of
the tune from British camps in the city of Boston.

***

“Yankee
Doodle’s” rapid transformation from a vehicle of derision to a famed national
tune occurred at the very onset of the Revolutionary War with the attack on Lexington
and Concord by forces belonging to
Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn.“In
1775 the British troops who attacked Concord
and Lexington needed rescuing by
Lord Percy's troops. As Percy marched through Roxbury with his band jeeringly
playing "Yankee Doodle," he good‑naturedly asked a young
American what there was to laugh about. ‘To think that soon you will dance to 'Chevy
Chase'’, answered the boy, referring to the very old ballad about
Otterbourne where Percy's great ancestor was defeated and captured"
(Winstock, 1970; pg. 70). The British were indeed chased back to Boston
with a one-sided loss of life, harassed much of the way by the ‘minutemen.’ The
Americans immediately appropriated the tune, which for a long time after was
called “The Lexington March.” The melody appears in the manuscript collection
of young Connecticut fifer Giles
Gibbs (1760-1780), who perished in the war, under the curious title “Thehos
Gendar.” “Yankee Doodle” was played by both sides in the Battle of Bunker Hill,
and thereafter continued to be performed by musicians in the American army as
well as the British. It appears in the manuscript collection, for example, of
Captain George Bush (1753?-1797), an officer in the Continental Army and a
fiddler by avocation. Under the terms of the surrender agreement at Yorktown
in 1782 the British were specifically prohibited from playing the tune. So
powerful was the metaphor, that when they turned insultingly away from the
Colonials to present themselves to the French forces as they piled their arms
on the ground, Lafayette instructed
the French bands to play it in solidarity with the Americans.

***

Morrison
(1976) states the air had a number of dance figures associated with it in
Colonial times, and gives two examples. Johnson (1988) prints two contra dances
to the tune.

***

“Yankee
Doodle” returned to Europe as an American anthem some
years later.Elson (1899) relates that,
in 1814, near the conclusion of the War of 1812, the American statesmen Henry
Clay and John Quincy Adams met the British ambassador at Ghent
to arrange the final points and to sign the treaty of peace between Great
Britain and America.
The burghers were proud their city was the site for so momentous an occasion
and proposed a serenade to the two embassies.They knew the English tunes well enough, but were perplexed as to the
American national anthem.The
bandmaster was sent to Clay to inquire, and was told that, of course, America’s
chief melody was “Yankee Doodle.”The
musician begged Clay to hum it to him, that he might write it down.Clay attempted to do this but failed, as did
the secretary of the legation.Attention then turned to Clay’s African-American body-servant, called
Bob, who was requested to whistle the tune.Bob complied, the bandmaster copied and harmonized, and the tune was
heard in the serenade as planned.

***

Stories involving tin-ears, “Yankee Doodle” and American
leaders do not end with Clay. A famous story about General Ulysses Grant and
his ‘tin-ear’ has it that in order to perform his martial duty the famous Union
Army warrior required a horse that could distinguish and respond to bugle
commands, for Grant himself acknowledged that he himself knew but two tunes—one
was “Yankee Doodle”... and other wasn’t. Another Civil War anecdote is
contained in historian Stephen Sears volume To
the Gates of Richmond, about the Lower Peninsula
campaign of 1862. An incident occurred during the Battle of Williamsburg:

***

[Federal] Corps
commander [Samuel] Heintzelman joined the desperate struggle to close the broken
ranks. He hit on the novel idea of rallying them with music. Finding several
regimental bands standing by bewildered as the battle closed in, Heintzelman
ordered them to take up their instruments. "Play! Play! It's all you're
good for," he shouted. "Play, damn it! Play some marching tune! Play
'Yankee Doodle,' or any doodle you can think of, only play something!"
Before long, over the roar of the guns, came the incongruous sound of
"Yankee Doodle" and then "Three Cheers for the Red, White, and
Blue." One of [General Joseph] Hooker's men thought the music was worth a
thousand men. "It saved the battle," he wrote.

***

It
is surprising to note that "Yankee Doodle" was used, along with
"Edie Sammon's Tune," as part of the music for the ritual horn dance at
Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, England in late Victorian times (see "Edie
Sammon's Tune"); the playing of "Yankee Doodle" thus emphasized
the whimsical nature of the dance (which features, along with the horn dancers,
the characters of the hobby horse, Robin Hood, the Maid and the Fool), which is
performed with such dusky solemnity at modern ‘Revels’ stage productions in
America. The title appears in
a list of tunes in his repertoire brought by Philip Goodman, the last
professional and traditional piper in Farney, Louth, to the Feis Ceoil in Belfast
in 1898 (Breathnach, 1997). While mostly traditional Irish in his repertoire,
Goodman regularly played several novelty or ‘popular’ tunes (he also played “Dixie,”
calling it “Dicksie’s Land,” and thus covered all bases for Irish veterans of
both sides of the Civil War). Recorded by Alabama
fiddler Dr. D. Dix Hollis (1961‑1927) for the Silvertone (Sears) lable,
1924. Sources for notated versions: Mt. Pleasant Tablatures (a fife MS from Pa.,
1950's) [Bayard]; the MS collection of Captain George Bush [Keller]; the fife
MS collection of young Revolutionary War soldier Giles Gibbs (1760-1780)
[Keller]. Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle),
1981; No. 19, pgs. 24‑25. Huntington (William
Litten’s), 1977; pg. 27. JIFSS No. 15, pg. 18. S. Johnson (The Kitchen Musician No. 8), 1988; pg.
9. Keller (Giles Gibbs Jr., His Book for
the Fife...1777, 1974; pg. 31 (under the curious
title “Thehos Gendar”). Keller (Fiddle Tunes from the American Revolution),
1992; pg. 17. Kennedy (Fiddler’s Tune
Book), vol. 1, 1951; No. 53, pg. 26. Kerr (Merry Melodies), vol. 2; No. 409, pg. 46. Kidson (Old English Country Dances), 1890; pg.
13. Linscott (Folk Songs of Old New
England), 1939; pg. 118. Morrison, 1976; pg. 43. O'Neill (Dance Music of Ireland),
No. 999. O'Neill (Waifs and Stays of
Gaelic Melody), No. 80. Stanford-Petrie (Complete Collection), No. 849 (“All the Ways to Galway”).
Raven (English Country Dance Tunes),
1984; pg. 148. Reavy, No. 41. Sweet (Fifer’s
Delight), 1965/1981; pg. 12 (two versions, one labled "18th Century
Version").

X:1

T:Yankee
Doodle

L:1/8

M:2/4

S:Aird,
Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and
Foreign Airs, 1782

Z:Paul
Kinder

K:D

ddef|ddec|ddef|d2c2|ddef|ddec|AABc|d2d2:|

|:d2
BG|BA B2|=c2 AG|FG A2|d2 BG|BG =c2|AB^cA|d2d2:|

|:dfeg|fdec|dfeg|f2
ed|dgeg|fdec|AABc|d2d2:|

|:d2BG|Bd=cB|ABAG|FGAB|=cdcA|Bd=cA|AB^cA|d2
d>g:|

|:fdec|dBAg|fdef|B2
Ag|fdec|dBAF|A2 Bc|d2 dg:|

|:FAAd|BAAG|FAAd|B2
AG|FAAd|cAAF|A2 Bc|d2d2:|

|:af
eg|fdec|faeg|f2 ed|faeg|fdec|AABc|d2d2:|

|:d/c/d/e/
dA|BAAF|d/c/d/e/ dA|B2A2|d/c/d/e/ dA|BAAF|A2 Bc|d2d2:|

|:a2
af|gfed|a2 ag|f2e2|a2 af|gfef|A2 Bc|d2d2:|

|:B/A/B/c/
Bd|A/G/A/B/ Ad|B/A/B/c/ Bd|BAGF|B/A/B/c/ Bd|

A/G/A/B/
Ad|A2 Bc|d2d2:|

X:2

T:Kitty
Fisher’s Jig

L:1/8

M:6/8

S:Rimbault,
Leisure Hour, pg. 90, 1876

N:Supposedly
from Walsh’s Collection of Dances for the
Year 1750

K:C

c2c
d2e|c2c B2G|c2c d2e|c3 B2G|c2c d2e|f2e d2c|B2G A2B|c3 c3||

A2A
A2G|A2B c3|G2A G2F|E3 G3|c2c d2e|f2e d2c|B2g A2B|c3c3||

X:3

T:Return
of Ulysses, to Ithaca

L:1/8

M:2/4

S:Musical
Tour of C. Dibdin, pg. 342, 1788

K:C

G|c
cde|cc BG|c cde|cc BA|c cde|fedc|BGAB|c z c z|

fefg|afdc|BGAB|czcz:|

|:G|ccde|ccBG|ccde|c2
BG|cc de|fe dc|BG AB|c2c2|AA GF|

GA
_BB|BA GF|c2 GG|AAGF|GA _B =B/A/|BG AB|c2c2|

feff|afdc|BGAB|c2C2:|

X:4

T:Adzooks,
old crusty, why so rusty

L:1/8

M:C

S:Arnold
– Two to One (1784)

K:E

B|eefg
eedB|eef(g e2) dz/B/|e(efg) agfe|dBcd e2E||

|:B|ee
fg ee dB|ee fg e2 dB|ee fg ag fe|BG cd e2 ez/f2e/2|

dBcd
e2e2::c>d cA cd e2|B>c BA G2B2|c>d cA cd e2|

c>e
df e2e2|c>edf e2E:|

X:5

T:Yankee Doodle

M:2/4

L:1/8

S:William
Sydney Mount manuscripts.

N:The tune
appears on a page with a handwritten playing guide for the fife or tin

N:whistle,
addressed to John B. Mount and dated March
26th, 1861. At the bottom of the

YARMOUTH
BREAKDOWN.English, Hornpipe. D Major. Standard tuning. AABB. Yarmouth
is a town in Norfolk, southern England.
Callaghan (2007) calls the tune a “classic East Anglian step-dance hornpipe.”
Reg Hall (liner notes, Topic TSCD659) says the tune is “a lovely example of the
un-dotted English hornpipe, very much in vogue in East
Anglia throughout most of the 20th
century, and probably dating from the 19th.” Source for notated
version: Percy Brown [Callaghan]. Callaghan (Hardcore English), 2007; pg. 27. Topic
Record TSCD659, Percy Brown – “Voice of the People, vol.9: Rig-A-Jig-Jig: Dance
Music of the South of England” (1998. various artists. Brown was aged 70 at the
time of the original recording in 1972). Veteran VTVS07/08, Billy Cooper (Norfolk).
Veteran VTVS07/08, Walter Geary (Norfolk).
Veteran VTVS05/06, Fred Pearce (Suffolk).
Wildgoose Records WGS340CD, Mary Humphrey & Anahata – “Fenlandia.”

YARMOUTH
HORNPIPE. AKA and see “Manchester Hornpipe [1],” “Morning Fair,” “Pigeon on the Gate [7],” “Texarkana Hornpipe,” “Tomorrow Morning.”English, Hornpipe. D Major. Standard tuning.
AABB. The Yarmouth Hornpipe seems to have originally been the name of a
step-dance in the south or England,
for which several (and perhaps many) tunes were played as the vehicle for the
dancers. East Anglia
dulcimer player Billy Bennington (“The Barford Angel”) had a “Yarmouth
Hornpipe,” for example, which elsewhere was the well-known “Flowers of
Edinburgh.” The tune appears in the 1850-1880 music manuscripts of George H.
Watson (Swanton Abbott, Norfolk).

YARMOUTH
LASSES. AKA and see "Wearmouth Lasses." English, Country
Dance Tune (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning. AABB. James Merryweather and
Matt Seattle (1994) point out that the name 'Yarmouth'
is a misreading of the old spelling 'W(e)armouth'. The “Yarmouth Hornpipe”
appears in several 19th century English musicians’ music manuscripts
under alternate spellings. Merryweather & Seattle (The Fiddler of Helperby), 1994; No. 78, pg. 47 (appears as an
untitled jig). Northumbrian Pipers' Tune
Book, 1970. Raven (English Country
Dance Tunes), 1984; pg. 117.

YARROW VALE. Scottish, Slow Air (4/4 time). B Flat Major. Standard tuning. AA. The
music to this song was composed by Watlen, published in his "Scots
Songs", while the lyrics were written by Macdonald.The song was once sung by Mrbani in Edinburgh
"with unbounded applause" (Neil, 1991). The beautiful and historic
vale of "soft undulating hills and quiet stream" has been celebrated
by Sir Walter Scott and William Wordsworth, and was the ground for many a
conflict.

***

In Yarrow vale by Yarrow stream,

Where love and youth and beauty stray,

Oft thro' the twilights waving gleam,

Sweet Mary trac'd the dewy way,

She loved the meads, the towering trees.

The fanning of the western gale,

Yet sighed for something still to please,

By Yarrow stream, by Yarrow vale,

By Yarrow stream, by Yarrow vale.

***

Neil (The Scots Fiddle), 1991; No. 47, pg. 63.

YE BANKS AND BRAES (O' BONNY DOON). AKA and see “Bonny Doon,” "Lost is my quiet," "The Caledonian Hunt's Delight."
Scottish, Waltz. D Major. Standard tuning. AB. The antiquarian William Chappell
claims the tune is English on the strength of its being included in a Collection of English Songs by Dale (who
published about 1780‑1794) under the title "Lost is my quiet."
However, the collector John Glen (1891) relates a delightful story of the
tune's origins involving the great Scots poet, Robert Burns, who wrote to
George Thomson in 1794:

***

Do you known the history of the air? It is curious enough.
A

good many years ago, Mr. James Miller, writer in your good

own (Edinburgh), a gentleman
whom, possibly, you know, was

in company with our good friend Clarke; and taling of Scottish

music, Miller expressed an ardent ambition to be able to

compose a Scots air. Mr. Clarke, partly by way of a joke, told

him to keep to the black keys of the harpsichord, and preserve

some kind of rhythm, and he would infallibly compose a Scots

air. Certain it is, that, in a few days, Mr. Miller produced the

rudiments of an air which Mr. Clarke, with some touches and

corrections, fashioned into the tune in question. Ritson, you

know,has the same story of the
black keys; but this account

which I have just given you, Mr. Clarke informed me of several

years ago.

****

Miller's tune was first published
under the title "The Caledonian Hunt's Delight" in Gow's 2nd Collection (1788), but Glen
concludes that it is more likely that "Lost is my quiet" is a poor
adaptation and nothing else. He also notes there is a tune having a supposed
resemblance in Playford's Appollo's
Banquet (1690) entitled "A Scotch Tune" (No. 68), but in the end
he believes that "neither Chappell's arguments nor facts are strong enough
to deprive Mr. Miller of his claim." Francis O’Neill (Irish Folk Music, pg. 56), taking up the Irish banner, reports that
George Farquhar Graham, editor of Wood’s Songs
of Scotland, states there is an Irish claim to the melody which predates
the Burns verses. A jig setting can be found in Kerr (Merry Melodies), vol. 4, pg. 28, as “Bonnie Doon.”

***

The song begins:
***

Ye banks and braes O’ Bonnie Doon,

How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?

How can ye chaunt, ye little birds,

And I’m sae wearyful O’ care?

Ye’ll break my heart ye warbling bird,

That warbles on the flow’ry thorn.

Ye mind me O’ departed joys, Departed never to return.

***

In the United
States an early printing appears in the Ira Clark Jr. Manuscript (pg. 55), from
the year 1790. Mr. Clark resided in Simsbury, Connecticut.
A variant can be found in the American
Veteran Fifer.

YE GODS OF LOVE. Scottish. The tune under this title appears in Aberdeen
musician John Forbes' Cantus, Songs and
Fancie, 1662. Williamson says it is related to an air in Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book of 1591 entitled "The
Irish Ho Hoane" (a mangled attempt at the Gaelic word "ochone"
or lament). Flying Fish, Robin Williamson ‑
"Legacy of the Scottish Harpers, vol. 2."

YE NATIVES OF THIS
NATION. Irish, Air (4/4 time, "bold").
F Major. Standard tuning. AB. "To this air was a violent political and
Jacobite song, composed by a man named Barnaby O'Hanlon, a turner, a native of
Donegal, who settled down and worked in our neighbourhood for some time. I
learned both air and words in my childhood by merely hearing the people about
me singing the song" (Joyce). One verse goes:
***

YE SONS OF OLD IRELAND. Irish, Air (6/8 time). A Mixolydian. Standard tuning. One part.
"This air has been already published, but in a very inferior setting. I
give my version from memory, as I learned it in early life. Moore's
Noch bonin shim doe (Song‑‑'They may rail at this life') is not
another version, but a different air altogether. The peasant song, of which I
give three verses from memory, had much rude vigour. It was a satire on those
Irish farmers and small gentry who became rich and cut a great figure during
the Napoleonic wars; but who came to their level after 'Boney was down,' in
1815" (Joyce). Joyce (Old Irish Folk
Music and Songs), 1909; No. 407, pg. 218.